Skeen's Return

by Clayton, Jo;

  “On their way.” Timka flicked fingers at the door. “The Yagan?”

  “Out of it. Domi, stand watch here; Ti, come with me, we’ve got to find Hopflea.”

  Moondark. Scuds of clouds obscured most of the stars, hanging low enough to be stained with pallid reds and golds from the bonefires burning in a ragged arc to the south of Fennakin. The streets were empty and silent except for the dank wind that wasn’t especially cold but nonetheless bit to the bone. Timka-owl flew over the roofs, crossing and recrossing Skeen’s path, a dark silent shadow lost in the fog beginning to thicken the already stygian air.

  Skeen swung along covering ground without seeming to hurry, her senses at their widest outreach, though she kept her body relaxed and seldom looked behind her. The matte-black eddersil tunic and trousers absorbed what little light there was and with her black boots and black gloves and near black hair and leaving aside her pale face, she was close to invisible; a long black knit scarf was wrapped about her neck and over the lower part of her face, its presence amply justified by the temperature of the ambient air. She carried a large leather bag, one gloved hand holding it against her side, the shoulder strap taking most of its weight. Several times she met other Cuspers out on nocturnal errands (she suspected these were similar to her own), passing them without interference or interfering.

  When she was within a few minutes of Tod’s House, she moved off the Skak and plunged into the maze of narrow winding alleys and byways no wider than a deerpath through thick brush. Here near the river the fog was denser. She slowed, groped along, one hand brushing the walls of the warehouses and shuttered shops that backed onto these smelly lanes, stopped now and again to run over once more the route she and Timka had laid out in their planning sessions, to check on touchmarks. A brick wall, the bricks in an intricate pattern of verticals and horizontals. A plank with a hole in it half the size of Skeen’s fist shaped like a pointed oval. A rickety fence of scavenged lumber. A dump of fish offal that never seemed to get larger or smaller; no need to touch that, it announced its presence a dozen meters away. And so on. Past shuttered windows and blank walls. No one about, not even a drunken derelict sleeping in a sheltered corner. Grope along and hope to get it right. She let herself sigh with relief when she saw the fuzzy reddish glow of the torches on Tod’s watchtowers. Another interval of groping, mercifully brief, and she was standing in the mouth of a narrow alley looking across a broad cleared stretch at the tatty whitewashed walls that shut in Nochsyon Tod’s house and business. She took the darter from its holster, unsnapped the lanyard from the loop in its butt and drew the ring across the stone wall at her side making a small grating sound. She repeated that twice more, then stood waiting.

  Ti-owl dropped out of the fog, flew low over her head, swept up, circled and came round again. Skeen held out the darter. With a powerful delicacy the owl’s talons closed on it and lifted it from her hand, then the bird powered up until it was an indistinct blur in the fog.

  By straining her eyes and knowing where it was going, Skeen could follow the blur to the tower. It hovered a moment outside one of the high narrow unglazed windows, then drifted on out of sight around the bulk of the tower. She waited, tense, until the dark blotch appeared again and settled gently onto the wall where it shifted into a larger different shape and vanished into the tunnel walkway where the wall met the tower.

  Skeen pulled up her tunic, unwrapped from around her waist a length of light rope knotted at intervals for quick climbing, an iron claw tied on one end, the metal warm where it had rested against her skin; she stripped the leather pads off the claws and dropped them into the lootbag, smoothed her tunic down, resettled the shoulder strap and waited.

  A long shape eased out of the walkway and stood a moment at the wall’s edge. Skeen held her breath, but there was no alarm. Timka was having trouble managing the darter; she went squat and broad into the owl shape, left the weapon lying on the wall and launched herself into the air; she swung round the watchtower, swept down, snatched up the darter and flew off, the fog closing about her as she moved deeper into the slaver’s hold.

  An eternity later the owl swooped down, hooted a warning and dropped the darter into Skeen’s reaching hands. It landed in the alley mouth and shifted.

  Shivering as the cold air hit her bare skin, Timka grinned at Skeen as the Pass-Through dug into the lootbag and found the fur cloak they’d lifted off Angelsin. Timka wrapped it round her and sighed with relief. She kicked the end under her to get her feet off the damp icy cobbles and managed to stop shivering.

  “Well?”

  Timka’s grin widened. “So easy it was almost shameful. The wallguard and the towerwatch were wrapped in blankets snoring by a brazier; they’d split a jug of homebrew between them and wouldn’t have noticed anything if I’d stepped on them. I put a couple of darts in each just to make sure and went for the pen tower. There was just one there, a Pallah with a royally juicy head cold; I was doing him a favor putting him out of his misery for a while.” She pulled the cloak tighter about her. “And I took a last swing around the grounds, the housetowers were empty like always, the woffits are out and prowling like always; maybe a handler somewhere about, but I didn’t see anyone. I still think I should go in with you; if there are surprises anywhere it’ll be in the house.”

  “I thought we settled that a week ago. Inside’s my job; I don’t want anyone but myself to worry about. You keep the guards off my back and make sure I have a way out if I run into trouble I can’t handle.” She slid her arm through the coil of rope and moved off, heading for that section of wall where she’d decided to go over.

  Skeen whipped the claw loose, pulled the rope through her hands and caught the grapple before it hit the hard-packed earth. She looped the rope and thrust her arm through the coils, then ghosted along the wall to the narrow end of the slave pen.

  Though she had planned this for days, though she had done this sort of prowl a thousand times before in circumstances far more demanding, she was nervous as a ferg in a high wind; this was so easy it was actually frightening, she felt as if she were being pushed into something before she was ready. As she moved along the pen, she decided the feeling came mostly because she wasn’t used to depending so much on others; Timka had done all the scouting and a lot of the planning, Angelsin and Maggí had determined the timing. She didn’t like this. No, not at all. She turned the corner of the pen and moved along it, fingertips slipping along the stone.

  The walls of the slave pen were thick and there were no windows in them, but she felt vast groans issuing from the stone, groans impressed into it by decades of misery. Not much rage. Those who spent their days and nights in there had long ago exhausted their capacity for anger.

  Her fingers slid off the stone. An arched opening. She hesitated, moved into it. A door. Built from massive planks held together with iron straps and studs. She explored the lock. The opening was large enough to admit a forefinger to the last joint. I haven’t time for this. Djabo’s throb, I’ve got things to do. She knelt by the lock, took out the sturdiest of her picks and began working; throwing the wards took more strength than skill, the lock was disengaged a few breaths after she began. She got to her feet, scowled at the door. Inside locks. No. After I clean up the strongroom. She smiled at the thought of Tod waking to find his gold gone and a good part of his slave shipment. Yes. That’s good.

  The claw bit into the inner wall with a satisfying chunk-unk. She waited a few breaths to see if the noise had alerted anyone, froze as she-heard a coughing bark, but it was some distance off, muffled by the intervening greenery. She looked up. Ti-owl dipped a wing, signaling all-clear. She went up and over the wall in a swift silent glide and found herself in an open-air scullery. Sinks and buckets, brooms and mops, sponges and pumice stones scattered about, dropped when the staff was done with them. The pavingstones were clean enough and there was little smell, well, that was easy enough to explain; you can’t confine a stink and it meant trouble if a wandering stench
reached the master’s nose. She walked warily through the clutter and stopped before a well-worn door, the wood splintering, disintegrating from dry rot. She pulled on the latch. With a small click it moved down and the door swung open, pressing against her hand, catching her off guard; she nearly stepped into a bucket, caught herself before she clattered like a rank amateur. Eh, Skeen, get serious. Want to or not, you’ve got to go in there. Settle down, or you’ll get yourself scragged and wouldn’t that be a shame. She eased the door open enough to slip through into the kitchen and pulled it shut behind her, tugging on the latch until she heard it clunk home. Well, old Tod, maybe this will be a lesson to you. Check your arrangements at least once a purple moon and you’ll save yourself nasty surprises.

  The darkness in the kitchen was stiff with smells; bread was rising somewhere, the yeasty odor dominant over damp stone and old food and ash from the banked fires; a kettle of soup simmered in a warming hole, adding warmth and a rich meaty aroma to the mix. Skeen sniffed and sighed with pleasure, then shook herself. Eh, old girl, you’re sliding again. Business, business, do get on with it. She dipped out several pinlights, attached them to her sleeves and powered them up, then moved quickly across the kitchen and passed into the servants’ refectory and workroom. The furniture there was made of some tight-grained wood, knocked together by someone with little taste and less skill but it had a certain charm in its utilitarian simplicity and the wood was heavy, polished by long use into a mottled smoothness that took the light like tortoiseshell. She touched the table with appreciative fingers, remembering all too well the synths that furnished her uncle’s house, gaudy, tawdry pseudo-elegance; she gave the table a final tap and moved on to the door that led into the main part of the house.

  No latch or anything this side, nothing but a hexagonal iron boss about chest high. She flattened her hands on the wood and pushed gently. About half a centimeter’s give, then the door bumped against an obstruction. Bar. Right. Wouldn’t want lovey’s sleep disturbed. She slipped the cutter from its nest, shorted the beam to three cm and took out a plug; the beam seared the green wood as it cut and there was the smell of hot resin. Skeen sniffed, wondered if the woffits might smell that and gather round. She listened but heard nothing, then held a pinlight close to the hole. Not quite through. She cut a bit deeper, checked again, pursed her lips in a silent satisfied whistle. She readjusted the beam, swept a smooth arc across the door, cutting a slot a finger wide in the heavy tight-grained wood. More stink. New door, well, he’s not completely hopeless; he takes good care of his fine pink skin. She switched the cutter for a tap awl, screwed it into the wood of the bar; silent whistle going again, beginning to feel like she was really working, she raised the bar to the vertical and started to push the door open. No, no, Skeen. We listen again, don’t get sloppy. She gripped the awl’s handle to hold the door shut, set her ear to the slot.

  Nothing. Nothing. She started to straighten, froze. Click-scratch of claws on hardwood. A woffit. Moving closer. Only one. Skeen held her breath and thought: moonlight playing on gently moving lake water. Click-scratch, brisk, steady as a metronome, coming at a trot. A wandering breeze ruffling the water, the plop of fish leaping. Butterflies circling in sunlight over the sand. The trot slowed, the tock of the claws grew confused. The sound of panting, a soft whine. The door moved slightly as the woffit scratched at it. Flowers swaying like dancers, soft bright green grass rippling like lakewater. No other sounds but the whines and the scratching; the woffit was alone. Woffits curled sleeping in the sun, intricately intertwined brown and gray fur. The tocking of the nail clicks speeded up, steadied, moved away. Skeen listened until she couldn’t hear the sound any longer; around her there was only silence that was made yet more silent by the nearly subliminal creaks and groans of the resting house. She unscrewed the tap awl and tucked it away, pushed the door open and stepped into a long, bare hallway. The pinlights showed her rough plaster walls, a pale splintery wood floor with a narrow hessian drugget down the middle. Right. Now we begin.

  Down the hall, following Timka’s instructions. Djabo whip her with wet noodles for being so miserably good at this business. A right-angle turn, the drugget changing to a thick soft carpet that glowed mulberry red in the pinlight beams. She stopped a step away from the heavy lined hanging that was drawn across the end of the hallway. What Timka said, draperies all over the place, hardly a wall without its hanging. Cuts the drafts, she said. Tod’s got this thing for covering walls and doorways, she said, with fancy work that probably blinded generations of weavers and embroiderers. A yellowish unsteady glow crept under the bottom of the drape. Skeen tapped off the pinlights and pushed an edge of the hanging aside.

  A few night candles in wall sconces, burning in tall glass cylinders, shed only enough light to thicken shifting shadows into impenetrability. The Great Hall looked, smelled, felt empty. Skeen waited several breaths longer, then slid into the room. She drifted along the walls, avoiding the light patches about the candles, dipped into the shadow under the balcony, reached the black arras without stirring up any guards—either four-legged or two. She glided along the hanging, stopped outside the arch and listened again.

  What she heard and felt was a stifled stillness. According to Timka, it was a much smaller, odd-shaped room, ceiling half the height of the Hall so it was hard to judge the difference in the feels. She frowned, tapped the pinlights back into service, edged the arras aside.

  A weak red glow from the cylindrical fire basin, reflected down at the floor by the polished smoke funnel; a slight draft slipped past her, moving from the Hall into the sitting room, stirring the air. She could smell the smoky musky odor of woffit, hot ash, stale brandy fumes, the cold food she saw congealed on plates left sitting on the edge of the fire basin. She unfastened the holster flap, tucked it behind her belt, made certain the lanyard was securely clipped to the butt ring on the darter, then she shouldered the arras aside and stepped into the room.

  Three paces in she stopped and darted the pinlight beams about. The fire basin. The two long chairs Timka mentioned, a few cushions and backed benches scattered about, nothing more. Across the room she saw the dark blotch that was the hanging Tod used to conceal his strongroom door. She started for it, moved past the long chairs—

  A weight landed on her, driving her off her feet, a meaty arm slapped round her neck, squeezing, studded leather straps and hard round breasts pushing against her back. A curse in a hoarse contralto as she hit the floor and her attacker’s elbow banged against the wood. Quick shift of large strong hands. She saw black spots swimming behind her eyelids. The breath had been knocked out of her, she was strangling, going out fast. Heavy thighs squeezed her, meaty buttocks bounced on hers, waves of stale sweat, woffit musk and oiled leather rolled over her. She grabbed at the woman’s hands, found the little fingers and twisted. Hard. The woman howled, yanked loose, slammed an elbow into the back of Skeen’s head, driving her face into the floor. Skeen locked her jaw against the pain and bucked wildly, trying to dislodge her rider before she could use that elbow again or get another grip on her throat. Woffits were growling and snarling around her, tearing at her; she kept her hands clear and ignored them, trusting boots and eddersil to keep their teeth out of her until she could deal with them. The darter jolted out of the holster, bounced against the floor as the lanyard jerked it about. Still humping, twisting, scrambling, Skeen flailed about for the lanyard. Woffit teeth slashed along her hand, nearly tore her thumb off. Their handler was slamming her fists into Skeen’s neck and shoulders, squealing with pain and belting out broken curses. Skeen got her mangled hand about the darter’s butt, twisted it round until it was pointing over her shoulder, went suddenly limp and touched the sensor. And touched it. And touched it, swaying the darter back and forth only by luck missing her own head.

  The cursing broke off, she heard a half-cough, then a ton of dead weight fell onto her shoulders, pinning her to the floor. Using her legs to power her, she drove her body into a twisting scramble an
d dumped the handler off her back. Growling, Djabo bless, but not barking or howling, the woffits flung themselves at her. She spun about, leaped onto one of the benches, spun again, kicking out at them while she clumsily switched to sprayshot and spat darts in a wide circle about her at images her pinlights picked out for her. Hating eyes that flared red as the beams sliced across them, snarling mouths with dripping yellow saber teeth, lean gray-brown sides working like bellows, whimpy ragged tails straight and stiff behind powerful hind legs—ghostly feral forms leaping, curvetting, catching and rejecting the light in a frightening dance of death. Round and round she spun, spraying darts at them, kicking at them when they leaped too close. Round and round until the darter hissed, clicked, the reservoir empty.

  Chest heaving, she lowered the weapon. In a silence that seemed somehow more threatening than the noises a moment before, she lowered herself warily from the chair and picked her way through the comatose woffits to stand over their handler, gazing down at her. A Pass-Through, not one of the Wavers. She didn’t recognize the species. Square body, mammalian to the extent of having breasts, each mound equipped with three fingerlength nipples, brawny arms, thin legs, broad flat feet. Round ball of a head, flat features squeezed into a ludicrously small area, leathery pointed ears, large and mobile as a bird’s wings, toothless mouth pursed into an eternal pout. Dark droplets fell on the woman’s skin. Skeen blinked, tried lifting her torn hand and was startled to realize how weak she was getting. The adrenalin high receding, she grimaced at the pain in her hand and a number of other places, fumbled for the darter and made a tourniquet of sorts from the lanyard. She was dizzy, not thinking too clearly, though it struck her as strange no one had heard the noise they’d made; at the moment it seemed to her the fight’d been noisy enough to wake the dead. The dangling darter knocked against her thigh. Empty. Got to fill the reservoir. She stumbled across the room to the archway and pushed past the arras into the Great Hall; moving seemed to help, at least it cleared some of the fuzz out of her head. Kitchen. Water there. She looked at the blood still oozing from her hand; the flow had lessened considerably thanks to the lanyard’s pressure. Clean dishtowels. Yes.